The Norton Introduction to Literature Shorter 12th Edition

THE NORTON INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE SHORTER TWELFTH EDITION



THE NORTON INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE SHORTER TWELFTH EDITION KELLY J. MAYS UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, LAS VEGAS B W. W. NORTON & COMPANY New York, London

W. W. Norton & Company has been independent since its founding in 1923, when William Warder Norton and Mary D. Herter Norton first published lectures delivered at the People’s Institute, the adult education division of New York City’s Cooper Union. The firm soon expanded its program beyond the Institute, publishing books by celebrated academics from America and abroad. By mid-century, the two major pillars of Norton’s publishing program—trade books and college texts—were firmly established. In the 1950s, the Norton family transferred control of the company to its employees, and today—with a staff of four hundred and a comparable number of trade, college, and professional titles published each year—W. W. Norton & Company stands as the largest and oldest publishing house owned wholly by its employees. Editor: Spencer Richardson-Jones Project Editor: Christine D’Antonio Associate Editor: Emily Stuart Editorial Assistant: Rachel Taylor Manuscript Editor: Jude Grant Managing Editor, College: Marian Johnson Managing Editor, College Digital Media: Kim Yi Production Manager: Ashley Horna Media Editor: Carly Fraser Doria Assistant Media Editor: Cara Folkman Media Editorial Assistant: Ava Bramson Marketing Manager, Literature: Kimberly Bowers Design Director: Rubina Yeh Book Designer: Jo Anne Metsch Photo Editor: Evan Luberger Photo Research: Julie Tesser Permissions Manager: Megan Schindel Permissions Clearer: Margaret Gorenstein Composition: Westchester Book Group Manufacturing: LSC Communications Copyright © 2017, 2016, 2013, 2010, 2006, 2002, 1998, 1995, 1991, 1986, 1981, 1977, 1973 by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Permission to use copyrighted material is included in the permissions acknowledgments section of this book, which begins on page A15. The Library of Congress has cataloged an earlier edition as follows: Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Norton Introduction to Literature / [edited by] Kelly J. Mays, University Of Nevada, Las Vegas. — Shorter Twelfth Edition. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-393-93892-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Literature—Collections. I. Mays, Kelly J., editor. PN6014.N67 2016 808.8—dc23 2015034604 This edition: ISBN 978-0-393-62357-4 W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110 www.wwnorton.com W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., 15 Carlisle Street, London W1D 3BS 1234567890

Contents Preface for Instructors xxv Introduction 1 What Is Literature? 1 What Does Literature Do? 3 John K eats, On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer 4 What Are the Genres of Literature? 4 Why Read Literature? 6 Why Study Literature? 8 Fiction FICTION: READING, RESPONDING, WRITING 12 Anon ymous, The Elephant in the Village of the Blind 13 READING AND RESPONDING TO FICTION 16 Linda Brewer, 20/20 16 SAMPLE WRITING: Annotation and Notes on “20/20” 17 Marjane Satr api, The Shabbat (from Persepolis) 20 WRITING ABOUT FICTION 31 Raymond Carver, Cathedral 32 SAMPLE WRITING: Wesley Rupton, Notes on Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” 43 SAMPLE WRITING: W esley Rupton, Response Paper on Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” 46 SAMPLE WRITING: Bethan y Qualls, A Narrator’s Blindness in Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” 49 TE LLING STOR IES: AN ALBUM 53 Sherman Alexie, Flight Patterns 54 Gr ace Paley, A Conversation with My Father 67 AUTHOR S ON THEIR WOR K: Grace Paley 72 tim o’brien, The Lives of the Dead 72 v

vi CONTENTS UNDERSTANDING THE TEXT 85 1 PLOT 85 Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, The Shroud 87 James Baldwin, Sonny’s Blues 93 Edith Wharton, Roman Fever 115 joyce carol oates, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? 125 AUTHOR S ON THEIR WOR K: Joyce Carol Oates 137 sample writing: ann warren, The Tragic Plot of “A Rose for Emily” 139 INITIATION STOR IES: AN ALBUM 145 Toni Cade Bambar a, The Lesson 146 AUTHOR S ON THEIR WOR K: Toni Cade Bambara 152 Alice Munro, Boys and Girls 152 John Updike, A & P 163 AUTHOR S ON THEIR WOR K: John Updike 168 James Joyce, Araby 168 2 NARR ATION AND POINT OF VIEW 174 Edgar Allan Poe, The Cask of Amontillado 178 Jamaica Kincaid, Girl 184 George Saunders, Puppy 186 AUTHOR S ON THEIR WOR K: George Saunders 192 jennifer egan, Black Box 193 AUTHOR S ON THEIR WOR K: Jennifer Egan 216 3 CHAR AC TER 218 William Faulkner, Barn Burning 225 Toni Morrison, Recitatif 238 AUTHOR S ON THEIR WOR K: Toni Morrison 252 David Foster Wallace, Good People 253 MONSTE R S: AN ALBUM 261 Margaret At wood, Lusus Naturae 262 K aren Russell, St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves 267 jorge luis borges, The House of Asterion 279 AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: Jorge Luis Borges 282 4 SETTING 284 Italo Calvino, from Invisible Cities 286 Margaret Mitchell, from Gone with the Wind 286

CONTENTS vii Alice R andall, from Wind Done Gone 288 Anton Chekhov, The Lady with the Dog 290 Amy Tan, A Pair of Tickets 302 Judith Ortiz Cofer, Volar 316 william gibson, The Gernsback Continuum 318 AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: William Gibson 327 SAMPLE WRITING: Stev en M at v iew, How Setting Reflects Emotions in Anton Chekhov’s “The Lady with the Dog” 329 5 SYMBOL AND FIGUR ATIVE L ANGUAGE 334 Nathaniel Haw thorne, The Birth-Mark 339 A. S. Byat t, The Thing in the Forest 351 Edwidge Danticat, A Wall of Fire Rising 366 SAMPLE WRITING: Charles Collins, Symbolism in “The Birth-Mark” and “The Thing in the Forest” 379 6 THEME 383 Aesop, The Two Crabs 383 Stephen Crane, The Open Boat 387 Gabriel García Márquez, A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings: A Tale for Children 405 Yasunari K awabata, The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket 410 junot día z, Wildwood 413 CROSS- CULTUR AL E NCOUNTE RS: AN ALBUM 431 Bhar ati Mukherjee, The Management of Grief 432 AUTHOR S ON THEIR WOR K: Bharati Mukherjee 445 Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies 446 AUTHOR S ON THEIR WOR K: Jhumpa Lahiri 461 David Sedaris, Jesus Shaves 462 EXPLORING CONTEXTS 467 7 THE AUTHOR’S WORK AS CONTEXT: FL ANNERY O’CONNOR 467 THREE STORIES BY FLANNERY O’CONNOR 470 A Good Man Is Hard to Find 470 Good Country People 481 Everything That Rises Must Converge 495

viii CONTENTS PASSAGES FROM FLANNERY O’CONNOR’S ESSAYS AND LETTERS 506 CRITICAL EXCERPTS 510 Mary Gordon, from Flannery’s Kiss 510 Ann E. Reuman, from Revolting Fictions: Flannery O’Connor’s Letter to Her Mother 513 Eileen Pollack, from Flannery O’Connor and the New Criticism 516 8 CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL CONTEXTS: WOMEN IN TURN- OF-THE- CENTURY AMERICA 519 K ate Chopin, The Story of an Hour 523 Charlot te Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper 526 Susan Glaspell, A Jury of Her Peers 537 CONTEXTUAL EXCERPTS 554 Charlot te Perkins Gilman, from Similar Cases 554 from Women and Economics 555 Barbar a Boyd, from Heart and Home Talks: Politics and Milk 556 Mrs. Arthur Ly t telton, from Women and Their Work 556 Rheta Childe Dorr, from What Eight Million Women Want 557 The New York Times, from Mrs. Delong Acquitted 558 The Washington Post, from The Chances of Divorce 558 Charlot te Perkins Gilman, from Why I Wrote “The Yellow Wall-paper” 559 The Washington Post, The Rest Cure 559 from Egotism of the Rest Cure 559 9 CRITICAL CONTEXTS: TIM O’BRIEN’S “THE THINGS THEY CARRIED” 562 tim o’brien, The Things They Carried 564 CRITICAL EXCERPTS 577 steven k aplan, The Undying Uncertainty of the Narrator in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried 577 lorrie n. smith, “The Things Men Do”: The Gendered Subtext in Tim O’Brien’s Esquire Stories 582 susan farrell, Tim O’Brien and Gender: A Defense of The Things They Carried 592

CONTENTS ix READING MORE FICTION 599 Ambrose Bierce, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge 599 Ralph Ellison, King of the Bingo Game 605 louise erdrich, Love Medicine 612 william faulkner, A Rose for Emily 628 Ernest Hemingway, Hills Like White Elephants 634 fr anz k afk a, A Hunger Artist 638 Bobbie Ann Mason, Shiloh 645 gu y de maupassant, The Jewelry 655 Herman Melville, Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street 661 Eudor a Welt y, Why I Live at the P.O. 687 Poetry POETRY: READING, RESPONDING, WRITING 698 DEFINING POETRY 699 Lydia Davis, Head, Heart 700 AUTHOR S ON THEIR CR AF T: Billy Collins 701 POETIC SUBGENRES AND KINDS 702 Edwin Arlington Robinson, Richard Cory 703 Thomas Hardy, The Ruined Maid 704 William Wordsworth, [I wandered lonely as a cloud] 705 Fr ank O’Har a, Poem [Lana Turner has collapsed] 706 Phillis Wheatley, On Being Brought from Africa to America 707 Emily Dickinson, [The Sky is low—the Clouds are mean] 708 Billy Collins, Divorce 708 Bruce Springsteen, Nebraska 709 Robert Hayden, A Letter from Phillis Wheatley 710 RESPONDING TO POETRY 712 Aphr a Behn, On Her Loving Two Equally 712 WRITING ABOUT POETRY 719 SAMPLE WRITING: Names in “On Her Loving Two Equally” 720 SAMPLE WRITING: Multiplying by Dividing in Aphra Behn’s “On Her Loving Two Equally” 722

x CONTENTS THE ART OF (R E ADING) POETRY: AN ALBUM 727 Emily Dickinson, [I dwell in Possibility—] 727 Archibald MacLeish, Ars Poetica 728 Czeslaw Milosz, Ars Poetica? 729 AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: Czeslaw Milosz 730 Eliz abeth Alex ander, Ars Poetica #100: I Believe 730 Marianne Moore, Poetry 731 Julia Alvarez, “Poetry Makes Nothing Happen”? 732 Billy Collins, Introduction to Poetry 733 UNDERSTANDING THE TEXT 735 1 0 SPEAKER: WHOSE VOICE DO WE HEAR? 735 NARRATIVE POEMS AND THEIR SPEAKERS 735 X. J. Kennedy, In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus One Day 735 SPEAKERS IN THE DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE 737 Robert Browning, Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister 737 THE LYRIC AND ITS SPEAKER 739 Margaret At wood, Death of a Young Son by Drowning 740 AUTHORS ON THEIR CR AF T: Billy Collins and Sharon Olds 741 William Wordsworth, She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways 742 Dorothy Parker, A Certain Lady 742 POEMS FOR FURTHER STUDY 743 Walt Whitman, [I celebrate myself, and sing myself ] 743 langston hughes, Ballad of the Landlord 744 E. E. Cummings, [next to of course god america i] 745 Gwendolyn Brooks, We Real Cool 745 AUTHOR S ON THEIR WOR K: Gwendolyn Brooks 746 lucille clifton, cream of wheat 746 EXPLOR ING GE N DE R : AN ALBUM 749 Richard Lovelace, Song: To Lucasta, Going to the Wars 750 Mary, Lady Chudleigh, To the Ladies 750 Wilfred Owen, Disabled 751 Eliz abeth Bishop, Exchanging Hats 752 David Wagoner, My Father’s Garden 753 Judith Ortiz Cofer, The Changeling 754 Marie Howe, Practicing 755 AUTHOR S ON THEIR WOR K: Marie Howe 756

CONTENTS xi Terr ance Hayes, Mr. T— 757 Bob Hicok, O my pa-pa 758 stacey waite, The Kind of Man I Am at the DMV 759 11 SITUATION AND SET TING: WHAT HAPPENS? WHERE? WHEN? 761 SITUATION 762 Rita Dove, Daystar 762 Linda Pastan, To a Daughter Leaving Home 762 THE CARPE DIEM POEM 763 John Donne, The Flea 764 Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress 764 SETTING 766 Mat thew Arnold, Dover Beach 766 THE OCCASIONAL POEM 767 Martín Espada, Litany at the Tomb of Frederick Douglass 768 AUTHOR S ON THEIR WOR K: Martín Espada 769 THE AUBADE 769 John Donne, The Good-Morrow 770 Jonathan Swift, A Description of the Morning 770 ONE POEM, MULTIPLE SITUATIONS AND SETTINGS 771 Li-Young Lee, Persimmons 771 ONE SITUATION AND SETTING, MULTIPLE POEMS 773 christopher marlowe, The Passionate Shepherd to His Love 774 sir walter r aleigh, The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd 774 anthon y hecht, The Dover Bitch 775 POEMS FOR FURTHER STUDY 776 Natasha Trethewey, Pilgrimage 776 kelly cherry, Alzheimer’s 777 mahmoud darwish, Identity Card 778 yehuda amichai, [On Yom Kippur in 1967 . . .] 780 y usef komun yak a a, Tu Do Street 780 AUTHOR S ON THEIR WOR K: Yusef Komunyakaa 782 HOM E L AN DS: AN ALBUM 785 Maya Angelou, Africa 785 AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: Maya Angelou 786 Derek Walcot t, A Far Cry from Africa 786 AUTHOR S ON THEIR WOR K: Derek Walcott 788

xii CONTENTS Judith Ortiz Cofer, The Latin Deli: An Ars Poetica 789 Cathy Song, Heaven 790 Agha Shahid Ali, Postcard from Kashmir 791 adrienne su, Escape from the Old Country 792 12 THEME AND TONE 794 TONE 794 W. D. Snodgr ass, Leaving the Motel 795 THEME 796 Ma xine Kumin, Woodchucks 796 Adrienne Rich, Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers 797 AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: Adrienne Rich 798 THEME AND CONFLICT 799 adrienne su, On Writing 800 authors on their work: Adrienne Su 801 POEMS FOR FURTHER STUDY 801 William Blake, London 801 Paul Laurence Dunbar, Sympathy 802 W. H. Auden, [Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone] 802 Sharon Olds, Last Night 803 K ay Ryan, Repulsive Theory 804 terr ance hayes, Carp Poem 805 c. k. williams, The Economy Rescued by My Mother Returning to Shop 806 SAMPLE WRITING: Stephen Bordland, Response Paper on W. H. Auden’s “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone” 809 FAMILY: AN ALBUM 813 simon j. ortiz, My Father’s Song 813 Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays 814 ellen bryant voigt, My Mother 814 martín espada, Of the Threads That Connect the Stars 816 Emily Grosholz, Eden 816 philip larkin, This Be the Verse 817 authors on their work: Philip Larkin 818 Jimmy Santiago Baca, Green Chile 818 paul martinez pompa, The Abuelita Poem 819 charlie smith, The Business 820 Andrew Hudgins, Begotten 821

CONTENTS xiii 13 LANGUAGE: WORD CHOICE AND ORDER 822 PRECISION AND AMBIGUITY 822 Sarah Cleghorn, [The golf links lie so near the mill] 822 martha collins, Lies 823 DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION 823 Walter de la Mare, Slim Cunning Hands 824 Theodore Roethke, My Papa’s Waltz 825 WORD ORDER AND PLACEMENT 825 Sharon Olds, Sex without Love 827 AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: Sharon Olds 828 POEMS FOR FURTHER STUDY 828 gerard manley hopkins, Pied Beauty 828 William Carlos Williams, The Red Wheelbarrow 829 This Is Just to Say 829 AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: William Carlos Williams 830 K ay Ryan, Blandeur 831 martha collins, [white paper #24] 831 a. e. stallings, Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda 832 14 VISUAL IMAGERY AND FIGURES OF SPEECH 834 Richard Wilbur, The Beautiful Changes 835 Lynn Powell, Kind of Blue 836 METAPHOR 837 William Shakespeare, [That time of year thou mayst in me behold] 837 Linda Pastan, Marks 838 PERSONIFICATION 838 Emily Dickinson, [Because I could not stop for Death—] 839 SIMILE AND ANALOGY 839 Robert Burns, A Red, Red Rose 840 todd boss, My Love for You Is So Embarrassingly 840 ALLUSION 841 amit majmudar, Dothead 842 patricia lockwood, What Is the Zoo for What 842 POEMS FOR FURTHER STUDY 844 William Shakespeare, [Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?] 844 Anon ymous, The Twenty-Third Psalm 845 John Donne, [Batter my heart, three-personed God] 845

xiv CONTENTS R andall Jarrell, The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner 846 john brehm, Sea of Faith 846 15 SYMBOL 848 THE INVENTED SYMBOL 848 James Dickey, The Leap 849 THE TRADITIONAL SYMBOL 851 Edmund Waller, Song 851 Dorothy Parker, One Perfect Rose 852 THE SYMBOLIC POEM 853 William Blake, The Sick Rose 853 POEMS FOR FURTHER STUDY 854 john keats, Ode to a Nightingale 854 robert frost, The Road Not Taken 856 Howard Nemerov, The Vacuum 857 Adrienne Rich, Diving into the Wreck 858 Roo Borson, After a Death 860 Brian Turner, Jundee Ameriki 860 AUTHOR S ON THEIR WOR K: Brian Turner 861 sharon olds, Bruise Ghazal 862 16 THE SOUNDS OF POETRY 863 RHYME 863 ONOMATOPOEIA, ALLITERATION, ASSONANCE, AND CONSONANCE 865 alex ander pope, from The Rape of the Lock 866 SOUND POEMS 866 Helen Chasin, The Word Plum 867 Kenneth Fearing, Dirge 867 Alex ander Pope, Sound and Sense 868 POETIC METER 871 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Metrical Feet 873 Anon ymous, [There was a young girl from St. Paul] 875 Alfred, Lord Tennyson, from The Charge of the Light Brigade 875 jane taylor, The Star 876 anne br adstreet, To My Dear and Loving Husband 877 jessie pope, The Call 877 wilfred owen, Dulce et Decorum Est 878

CONTENTS xv POEMS FOR FURTHER STUDY 879 William Shakespeare, [Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore] 879 Ger aRd Manley Hopkins, Spring and Fall 880 walt whitman, Beat! Beat! Drums! 880 kevin young, Ode to Pork 881 WOR D AN D MUSIC: AN ALBUM 885 Thomas Campion, When to Her Lute Corinna Sings 885 Anon ymous, Sir Patrick Spens 886 dudley r andall, Ballad of Birmingham 887 Augustus Montague Toplady, A Prayer, Living and Dying 888 Robert Hayden, Homage to the Empress of the Blues 889 Michael Harper, Dear John, Dear Coltrane 890 bob dy lan, The Times They Are A-Changin’ 891 linda pastan, Listening to Bob Dylan, 2005 892 Mos Def, Hip Hop 893 jose b. gonz alez, Elvis in the Inner City 895 17 INTERNAL STRUCTURE 897 DIVIDING POEMS INTO “PARTS” 897 Pat Mora, Sonrisas 897 INTERNAL VERSUS EXTERNAL OR FORMAL “PARTS” 899 Galway Kinnell, Blackberry Eating 899 LYRICS AS INTERNAL DRAMAS 899 Seamus Heaney, Punishment 900 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Frost at Midnight 902 Sharon Olds, The Victims 904 MAKING ARGUMENTS ABOUT STRUCTURE 905 POEMS WITHOUT “PARTS” 905 Walt Whitman, I Hear America Singing 905 POEMS FOR FURTHER STUDY 906 William Shakespeare, [Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame] 906 Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ode to the West Wind 907 Philip Larkin, Church Going 909 AUTHORS ON THEIR WOR K: Philip Larkin 911 k atie ford, Still-Life 912

xvi CONTENTS kevin young, Greening 912 SAMPLE WRITING: Lindsay Gibson, Philip Larkin’s “Church Going” 914 18 EXTERNAL FORM 918 STANZAS 918 TRADITIONAL STANZA FORMS 918 richard wilbur, Terza Rima 919 TRADITIONAL VERSE FORMS 920 FIXED FORMS OR FORM-BASED SUBGENRES 921 TRADITIONAL FORMS: POEMS FOR FURTHER STUDY 922 Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night 922 Natasha Trethewey, Myth 923 Eliz abeth Bishop, Sestina 923 Ciar a Shut tleworth, Sestina 925 E. E. Cummings, [l(a] 926 [Buffalo Bill’s] 926 CONCRETE POETRY 927 George Herbert, Easter Wings 927 May Swenson, Women 928 TH E SON N ET: AN ALBUM 931 fr ancesco Petr arch, [Upon the breeze she spread her golden hair] 932 Henry Constable, [My lady’s presence makes the roses red] 933 William Shakespeare, [My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun] 933 [Not marble, nor the gilded monuments] 934 [Let me not to the marriage of true minds] 934 John Milton, [When I consider how my light is spent] 935 William Wordsworth, Nuns Fret Not 935 Eliz abeth Barret t Browning, How Do I Love Thee? 936 Christina Rosset ti, In an Artist’s Studio 936 Edna St. Vincent Millay, [What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why] 937 [Women have loved before as I love now] 937 [I, being born a woman and distressed] 937 [I will put Chaos into fourteen lines] 938 Robert Frost, Range-Finding 938 Design 939

CONTENTS xvii Gwendolyn Brooks, First Fight. Then Fiddle. 939 Gwen Harwood, In the Park 940 June Jordan, Something Like a Sonnet for Phillis Miracle Wheatley 940 Billy Collins, Sonnet 941 harryet te mullen, Dim Lady 941 sherman alexie, The Facebook Sonnet 942 HAIKU: AN ALBUM 945 Chi yojo, [Whether astringent] 945 Basho, [A village without bells—] 946 [This road —] 946 Buson, [Coolness—] 946 [Listening to the moon] 946 Lafcadio Hearn, [Old pond —] 946 Clara A. Walsh, [An old-time pond] 946 Earl Miner, [The still old pond] 947 Allen Ginsberg, [The old pond] 947 ezr a pound, In a Station of the Metro 947 allen ginsberg, [Looking over my shoulder] 947 richard wright, [In the falling snow] 947 Etheridge Knight, from [Eastern guard tower] 948 [The falling snow flakes] 948 [Making jazz swing in] 948 AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: Etheridge Knight 948 Mark Jarman, Haiku 949 Sonia Sanchez, from 9 Haiku 949 sue standing, Diamond Haiku 949 linda pastan, In the Har-Poen Tea Garden 950 EXPLORING CONTEXTS 952 19 THE AUTHOR’S WORK AS CONTEXT: ADRIENNE RICH 954 POEMS BY ADRIENNE RICH 958 At a Bach Concert 958 959 Storm Warnings 958 Living in Sin 959 Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: Adrienne Rich 963 Planetarium 964 For the Record 965

xviii CONTENTS [My mouth hovers across your breasts] 966 History 966 Transparencies 967 Tonight No Poetry Will Serve 968 PASSAGES FROM RICH’S ESSAYS 969 from When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision 969 from A Communal Poetry 970 from Why I Refused the National Medal for the Arts 971 from Poetry and the Forgotten Future 974 SAMPLE WRITING: Melissa Makolin, Out-Sonneting Shakespeare: An Examination of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Use of the Sonnet Form 981 E MILY DICKINSON: AN ALBUM 987 [Tell all the truth but tell it slant—] 988 992 [I stepped from Plank to Plank] 988 [Wild Nights—Wild Nights!] 989 [My Life had stood—a Loaded Gun—] 989 [After great pain, a formal feeling comes—] 990 [A narrow Fellow in the Grass] 990 Wendy Cope, Emily Dickinson 991 Hart Cr ane, To Emily Dickinson 991 Billy Collins, Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes W. B. YEATS: AN ALBUM 997 The Lake Isle of Innisfree 999 AUTHOR S ON THEIR WOR K: W. B. Yeats 1000 All Things Can Tempt Me 1000 Easter 1916 1001 The Second Coming 1003 Leda and the Swan 1004 Sailing to Byzantium 1004 W. H. Auden, In Memory of W. B. Yeats 1006 AUTHOR S ON THEIR WOR K: W. H. Auden 1008 PAT MOR A: AN ALBUM 1013 Elena 1014 Gentle Communion 1015 Mothers and Daughters 1015 La Migra 1016 Ode to Adobe 1017

CONTENTS xix 20 THE AUTHOR’S WORK AS CONTEXT: WILLIAM BLAKE’S SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND OF EXPERIENCE 1021 color insert: Facsimile Pages from SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND OF EXPERIENCE faces 1021 WILLIAM BLAKE’S SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND OF EXPERIENCE 1022 songs of innocence, Introduction 1023 The Ecchoing Green 1023 Holy Thursday 1024 The Lamb 1024 The Chimney Sweeper 1025 songs of experience, Introduction 1026 The Tyger 1026 The Garden of Love 1027 The Chimney Sweeper 1027 Holy Thursday 1027 21 CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL CONTEXTS: THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE 1031 POEMS OF THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE 1040 Arna Bontemps, A Black Man Talks of Reaping 1040 Countee Cullen, Yet Do I Marvel 1041 Saturday’s Child 1041 From the Dark Tower 1042 AngElina Grimké, The Black Finger 1042 Tenebris 1043 Langston Hughes, Harlem 1043 The Weary Blues 1043 The Negro Speaks of Rivers 1044 I, Too 1045 Helene Johnson, Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem 1046 Claude McK ay, Harlem Shadows 1046 If We Must Die 1047 The Tropics in New York 1047 The Harlem Dancer 1047 The White House 1048 CONTEXTUAL EXCERPTS 1048 James Weldon Johnson, from the preface to The Book of American Negro Poetry 1048 Alain Locke, from The New Negro 1050 Rudolph Fisher, from The Caucasian Storms Harlem 1054

xx CONTENTS W. E. B. Du Bois, from Two Novels 1058 Zor a Neale Hurston, How It Feels to Be Colored Me 1059 Langston Hughes, from The Big Sea 1062 SAMPLE WRITING: Irene Morstan, “They’ll See How Beautiful I Am”: “I, Too” and the Harlem Renaissance 1067 22 CRITICAL CONTEXTS: SYLVIA PL ATH’S “DADDY” 1072 Sylvia Plath, Daddy 1073 CRITICAL EXCERPTS 1077 George Steiner, from Dying Is an Art 1077 A. Alvarez, from Sylvia Plath 1080 Irving Howe, from The Plath Celebration: A Partial Dissent 1081 Judith Kroll, from Rituals of Exorcism: “Daddy” 1083 Mary Lynn Broe, from Protean Poetic 1084 Selection is not included for permissions reasons. Margaret Homans, from A Feminine Tradition 1086 Pamela J. Annas, from A Disturbance in Mirrors 1087 Steven Gould A xelrod, from Sylvia Plath: The Wound and the Cure of Words 1089 Laur a Frost, from “Every Woman Adores a Fascist”: Feminist Visions of Fascism from Three Guineas to Fear of Flying 1096 READING MORE POETRY 1102 W. H. Auden, Musée des Beaux Arts 1102 Robert Browning, My Last Duchess 1103 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan 1104 E. E. Cummings, [in Just-] 1105 John Donne, [Death, be not proud] 1106 Song 1107 The Sun Rising 1107 A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning 1108 Paul Laurence Dunbar, We Wear the Mask 1109 T. S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock 1110 Robert Frost, Home Burial 1113 Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening 1116 Seamus Heaney, Digging 1116 Ger ard Manley Hopkins, God’s Grandeur 1117 The Windhover 1118 Ben Jonson, On My First Son 1118 John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn 1119 To Autumn 1120

CONTENTS xxi etheridge knight, Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane 1121 y usef komun yak a a, Facing It 1122 AUTHOR S ON THEIR WOR K: Yusef Komunyakaa 1123 Linda Pastan, love poem 1123 marge piercy, Barbie Doll 1124 sylvia plath, Lady Lazarus 1125 Morning Song 1127 edgar allan poe, The Raven 1127 ezr a pound, The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter 1130 Wallace Stevens, Anecdote of the Jar 1131 The Emperor of Ice-Cream 1131 Alfred, Lord Tenn yson, Tears, Idle Tears 1132 Ulysses 1132 Walt Whitman, Facing West from California’s Shores 1134 A Noiseless Patient Spider 1134 richard wilbur, Love Calls Us to the Things of This World 1135 William Carlos Williams, The Dance 1136 William Wordsworth, [The world is too much with us] 1136 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES: POETS 1137 Drama DRAMA: READING, RESPONDING, WRITING 1152 READING DRAMA 1152 Susan Glaspell, Trifles 1155 RESPONDING TO DRAMA 1165 SAMPLE WRITING: Annotation of Trifles 1165 SAMPLE WRITING: Reading Notes 1168 WRITING ABOUT DRAMA 1171 SAMPLE WRITING: jessica zezulk a, Trifles Plot Response Paper 1173 SAMPLE WRITING: stephanie orteGa, A Journey of Sisterhood 1175 UNDERSTANDING THE TEXT 1178 23 ELEMENTS OF DR AMA 1178 August Wilson, Fences 1187

xxii CONTENTS AUTHOR S ON THEIR WOR K: August Wilson 1239 quiar a alegrÍa hudes, Water by the Spoonful 1239 EXPLORING CONTEXTS 1288 24 THE AUTHOR’S WORK AS CONTEXT: WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 1288 THE LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE: A BIOGRAPHICAL MYSTERY 1288 EXPLORING SHAKESPEARE’S WORK: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM AND HAMLET 1290 A Midsummer Night’s Dream 1294 Hamlet 1350 25 CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL CONTEXTS: LORRAINE HANSBERRY’S R AISIN IN THE SUN 1446 Lorr aine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun 1456 AUTHOR S ON THEIR WOR K: Lorraine Hansberry 1520 CONTEXTUAL EXCERPTS 1523 Richard Wright, from Twelve Million Black Voices 1523 Robert Gruenberg, from Chicago Fiddles While Trumbull Park Burns 1527 Gertrude Samuels, from Even More Crucial Than in the South 1529 Wilma Dykeman and James Stokely, from New Southerner: The Middle-Class Negro 1532 Martin Luther King, Jr., from Letter from Birmingham Jail 1534 Robert C. Weaver, from The Negro as an American 1536 Earl E. Thorpe, from Africa in the Thought of Negro Americans 1540 Selection is not included for permissions reasons. Phaon Goldman, from The Significance of African Freedom for the Negro American 1541 Selection is not included for permissions reasons. Bruce Norris, from Clybourne Park 1544 26 CRITICAL CONTEXTS: SOPHOCLES’S ANTIGONE 1549 Sophocles, Antigone 1551 CRITICAL EXCERPTS 1584 Richard c. Jebb, from The Antigone of Sophocles 1584 Maurice Bowr a, from Sophoclean Tragedy 1585 Bernard Knox, from Introduction to Antigone 1587

CONTENTS xxiii Martha c. Nussbaum, from Sophocles’ Antigone: Conflict, Vision, and Simplification 1594 Philip Holt, from Polis and the Tragedy in the Antigone 1599 SAMPLE WRITING: Jack ie Iz awa, The Two Faces of Antigone 1609 READING MORE DR AMA 1616 Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard 1616 henrik ibsen, A Doll House 1654 Jane Martin, Two Monologues from Talking With . . . 1704 Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman 1709 AUTHOR S ON THEIR WOR K: Arthur Miller 1776 Sophocles, Oedipus the King 1777 Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire 1817 WRITING ABOUT LITER ATURE 1885 27 BASIC MOVES: PAR APHR ASE, SUMMARY, AND DESCRIP TION 1886 28 THE LITER ATURE ESSAY 1890 29 THE WRITING PROCESS 1910 30 THE LITER ATURE RESEARCH ESSAY 1923 31 QUOTATION, CITATION, AND DOCUMENTATION 1934 32 SAMPLE RESEARCH ESSAY sar ah Roberts, “Only a Girl”? Gendered Initiation in Alice Munro’s “Boys and Girls” 1961 CRITICAL APPROACHES 1971 GLOSSARY A1 Permissions Acknowledgments A15 Index of Authors A31 Index of Titles and First Lines A37 Index of Literary Terms A45



Preface for Instructors Like its predecessors, this Twelfth Edition of The Norton Introduction to Litera- ture offers in a single volume a complete course in reading literature and writing about it. A teaching anthology focused on the actual tasks, challenges, and ques- tions typically faced by students and instructors, The Norton Introduction to Lit- erature offers practical advice to help students transform their first impressions of literary works into fruitful discussions and meaningful critical essays, and it helps students and instructors together tackle the complex questions at the heart of literary study. The Norton Introduction to Literature has been revised with an eye to provid- ing a book that is as flexible and as useful as possible—adaptable to many dif- ferent teaching styles and individual preferences—and that also conveys the excitement at the heart of literature itself. FEATURES OF THE NORTON INTRODUCTION TO LITER ATURE Although this Twelfth Edition contains much that is new or refashioned, the essential features of the text have remained consistent over many editions: Diverse selections with broad appeal Because readings are the central component of any literature class, my most important task has been to select a rich array of appealing and challenging liter- ary works. Among the 58 stories, 301 poems, and 12 plays in The Norton Intro- duction to Literature, readers will find selections by well-established and emerging voices alike, representing a broad range of times, places, cultural perspectives, and styles. The readings are excitingly diverse in terms of subject and style as well as authorship and national origin. In selecting and presenting literary texts, my top priorities continue to be quality as well as pedagogical relevance and usefulness. I have integrated the new with the old and the experimental with the canonical, believing that contrast and variety help students recognize and respond to the unique features of any literary work. In this way, I aim to help students and instructors alike approach the unfamiliar by way of the familiar (and vice versa). Helpful and unobtrusive editorial matter As always, the instructional material before and after each selection avoids dic- tating any particular interpretation or response, instead highlighting essential terms and concepts in order to make the literature that follows more accessible to student readers. Questions and writing suggestions help readers apply general xxv

x xvi PREFACE FOR INSTRUCTORS concepts to specific readings in order to develop, articulate, refine, and defend their own responses. As in all Norton anthologies, I have annotated the works with a light hand, seeking to be informative but not interpretive. An introduction to the study of literature To introduce students to fiction, poetry, and drama is to open up a complex field of study with a long history. The Introduction addresses many of the questions that students may have about the nature of literature as well as the practice of literary criticism. By exploring some of the most compelling reasons for reading and writing about literature, much of the mystery about matters of method is cleared away, and I provide motivated students with a sense of the issues and opportunities that lie ahead as they study literature. As in earlier editions, I con- tinue to encourage student fascination with particular authors and their careers, expanding upon the featured “Authors on Their Work” boxes as well as single- author chapters and albums. Thoughtful guidance for writing about literature The Twelfth Edition integrates opportunities for student writing at each step of the course, highlighting the mastery of skills for students at every level. “Read- ing, Responding, Writing” sections at the beginning of each genre unit, including a thoroughly revised opener to the poetry unit, offer students concrete advice about how to transform careful reading into productive and insightful writing. Sample questions for each work or about each element (e.g., “Questions about Character”) provide exercises for answering these questions or for applying new concepts to particular works, and examples of student writing demonstrate how a student’s notes on a story or poem may be developed into a response paper or an organized critical argument. New essays bring the total number of examples of student writing to seventeen. The constructive, step-by-step approach to the writing process is thoroughly demonstrated in several chapters called “Writing about Literature.” As in the chapters introducing concepts and literary selections, the first steps presented in the writing section are simple and straightforward, outlining the basic formal ele- ments common to essays—thesis, structure, and so on. Following these steps encourages students to approach the essay both as a distinctive genre with its own elements and as an accessible form of writing with a clear purpose. From here, I walk students through the writing process: how to choose a topic, gather evidence, and develop an argument; the methods of writing a research essay; and the mechanics of effective quotation and responsible citation and documentation. New, up-to-date material on using the Internet for research has been included. Also featured is a sample research paper that has been annotated to call attention to important features of good student writing. Even more resources for student writers are available at the free student website, LitWeb, described below.

PREFACE FOR INSTRUCTORS x xvii A comprehensive approach to the contexts of literature The Twelfth Edition not only offers expanded resources for interpreting and writing about literature, but it also extends the perspectives from which students can view particular authors and works. One of the greatest strengths of The Nor- ton Introduction to Literature has been its exploration of the relation between literary texts and a variety of contexts. For several editions, “Author’s Work” and “Critical Contexts” chapters have served as mini-casebooks that contain a wealth of material for in-depth, context-focused reading and writing assignments. Recent editions have also been supplemented with “Cultural Contexts” chapters that explore a cultural moment or setting. In the Twelfth Edition I have revised and expanded the current context chap- ters and added an entirely new chapter on Tim O’Brien’s seminal story, “The Things They Carried.” Other revised context chapters include an updated chapter on Adrienne Rich, featuring work from her final collection of poetry and essays published shortly before her death, and re-edited excerpts from scholarly essays in the chapter on Sophocles’s Antigone, as well as general revision and updates throughout each context chapter. The “Critical Approaches” section provides an overview of contemporary crit- ical theory and its terminology and is useful as an introduction, a refresher, or a preparation for further exploration. A sensible and teachable organization The accessible format of The Norton Introduction to Literature, which has worked so well for teachers and students for many editions, remains the same. Each genre is approached in three logical steps. Fiction, for example, is introduced by “Fiction: Reading, Responding, Writing,” which treats the purpose and nature of fiction, the reading experience, and the steps one takes to begin writing about fiction. This feature is followed by the six-chapter section called “Understanding the Text,” which concentrates on the genre’s key elements. The third section, “Exploring Contexts” suggests ways to embrace a work of literature by considering various literary, temporal, and cultural contexts. “Reading More Fiction,” the final compo- nent in the Fiction section, is a reservoir of additional readings for independent study or a different approach. The Poetry and Drama sections, in turn, follow exactly the same organizational format as Fiction. The book’s arrangement allows movement from narrower to broader frame- works, from simpler to more complex questions and issues, and mirrors the way people read—wanting to learn more as they experience more. At the same time, no chapter or section depends on any other, so that individual teachers can pick and choose which chapters or sections to assign and in what order. Deep representation of select authors The Norton Introduction to Literature offers a range of opportunities for in-depth study of noted authors. Author’s Work chapters on Flannery O’Connor, Adri- enne Rich, William Blake, and William Shakespeare in the “Exploring Contexts” sections substantively engage with multiple works by each author, allowing

x xviii PREFACE FOR INSTRUCTORS students to make substantive connections between works from different phases of an author’s career. In addition, “albums” of multiple works by Emily Dickin- son, W. B. Yeats, and Pat Mora allow students to explore on their own a larger sampling of each poet’s work. Other chapters, such as the “Cultural and His- torical Contexts” chapters, explore the historical milieu of such works as Susan Glaspell’s “Jury of Her Peers,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpa- per,” and Kate Chopin’s “Story of An Hour,” as well as Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun. “Critical Contexts” chapters in each genre section, including Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried,” Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy,” and Sopho- cles’s Antigone, encourage students to delve deeper into each author’s work after they have sampled the rich and varied tradition of commentary that each author has inspired. NEW TO THE TWELFTH EDITION Fifty-two new selections There are eight new stories, forty-two new poems, and two new plays in this Twelfth Edition of The Norton Introduction to Literature. You will find new selections from popular and canonical writers such as Tim O’Brien, August Wil- son, Toni Cade Bambara, Philip Larkin, Lucille Clifton, Langston Hughes, William Blake, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Jorge Luis Borges, as well as works by exciting new authors such as Junot Díaz, Kevin Young, Patricia Lockwood, Wil- liam Gibson, Jennifer Egan, Charlie Smith, Todd Boss, Adrienne Su, and Quiara Alegría Hudes. Significantly improved writing pedagogy Recent editions The Norton Introduction to Literature greatly expanded and improved the resources for student writers, including thorough introductions to each genre in “Reading, Responding, Writing,” broadened online materials, and new student essays. For the Twelfth Edition, the chapters on Writing about Literature have been completely revised to be much more focused on the essen- tials moves of writing and interpretation, as well as much more coverage on the kinds of writing students are most frequently assigned. In addition, four new samples of student writing for different kinds of assignments have been added to the book, bringing the total number of such samples to eighteen. More generally, throughout the Twelfth Edition I have thoroughly revised the writing prompts and suggestions. A new Critical Context chapter on Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” “The Things They Carried” is among the most widely taught works in introduc- tory literature courses, and, in order to offer a compelling exploration of this story in anthology, a new Critical Context chapter has been built around it. This new chapter offers a incisive, array of scholarly essays on diverse topics related to O’Brien’s work, and will help spur lively classroom discussion and encourage engaging student writing.

PREFACE FOR INSTRUCTORS x xix Expanded and revised thematic “albums” Recognizing that many courses build their reading lists around resonant topics or themes, I have expanded in this Twelfth Edition several topic-oriented clusters of stories and poems. Revised and updated versions of collections like “Cross- Cultural Encounters,” “Initiation Stories,” “Exploring Gender,” and “Music and Lyrics” provide students and instructors with ample opportunity to approach their reading (and the course) through a comparison of varied treatments of a common topic, setting, or subgenre. STUDENT RESOURCES LitWeb (digital.wwnorton.com/litweb) Improved and expanded, this free resource offers tools that help students read and write about literature with skill and understanding: • New Pause & Practice exercises expand on the “Writing about Literature” chapters and offer additional opportunities to practice effective writing. Seven exercises, each tied to a specific writing skill, test students on what they know, provide instruction both text and video for different learning styles, assess students on what they’ve learned, and give them an oppor- tunity to apply newly strengthened skills. • In-depth workshops feature fifty-five often-taught works from the text, all rooted in the guidance given in the “Reading, Responding, Writing” chapters. • Self-grading multiple-choice quizzes on sixty of the most widely taught works offer instant feedback designed to hone students’ close-reading skills Digital Edition The Shorter Twelfth Edition of The Norton Introduction to Literature is now avail- able as an ebook. To preview and purchase visit digital.wwnorton.com/lit12shorter. INSTRUCTOR RESOURCES Instructor’s Manual This thorough guide offers in-depth discussions of nearly all the works in the anthology as well as teaching suggestions and tips for the writing-intensive litera- ture course. Coursepacks for learning management systems Available for all major learning management systems (including Blackboard, Angel, Moodle), this free and customizable resource makes the features of LitWeb and plus the Writing about Literature video series and other material available to instructors within the online framework of their choice.

x x x PREFACE FOR INSTRUCTORS Teaching Poetry: A Handbook of Exercises for Large and Small Classes (Allan J. Gedalof, University of Western Ontario) This practical handbook offers a wide variety of innovative in-class exercises to enliven classroom discussion of poetry. Each of these flexible teaching exercises includes straightforward step-by-step guidelines and suggestions for variation. Play DVDs DVDs of most of the plays in the anthology are available to qualified adopters. Semester-long Netflix subscriptions are also available. To obtain any of these instructional resources, please contact your local Nor- ton representative. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In working on this book, I have been guided by teachers and students in my own and other English departments who have used this textbook and responded with comments and suggestions. Thanks to such capable help, I am hopeful that this book will continue to offer a solid and stimulating introduction to the experience of literature. This project continually reminds me why I follow the vocation of teaching literature, which after all is a communal rather than a solitary calling. Since its inception, The Norton Introduction to Literature has been very much a collabora- tive effort. I am grateful for the opportunity to carry on the work begun by the late Carl Bain and Jerome Beaty, whose student I will always be. And I am equally indebted to my wonderful colleagues Paul Hunter and Alison Booth. Their wisdom and intelligence have had a profound effect on me, and their stamp will endure on this and all future editions of this book. I am thankful to Alison especially for the erudition, savvy, grace, and humor she brought to our partnership. Thanks also to Jason Snart, of the College of Dupage, for his work preparing the online resources for students. As more and more instructors have integrated online materials into their teaching, users of this book have benefited from his experienced insight into teaching writing and literature, as well as his thoughtful development of exercises, quizzes, videos and more. I would also like to thank Carly Fraser Doria, emedia editor for the Twelfth Edition, as well as Kimberly Bowers, marketing manager for both the Eleventh and Twelfth Editions. In putting together the Twelfth Edition, I have accrued many debts to friends and colleagues and to users of the Eleventh Edition who reached out to point out its mistakes, as well as successes. I am grateful for their generosity and insight, as I also am that of my wise and patient editor, Spencer Richardson-Jones. But I am also peculiarly aware this edition of more enduring and personal debts as well, which I hope it’s not entirely out of place to honor here—to my mother, Lola Mays, who died in the very midst of this book’s making, and to both my sister, Nelda Mays, and my husband and in-house editor, Hugh Jackson, without whom I’m not sure I would have made it through that loss, this book, or anything else. To them, much love, much thanks.

PREFACE FOR INSTRUCTORS x x xi The Norton Introduction to Literature continues to thrive because so many teach- ers and students generously take the time to provide valuable feedback and sug- gestions. Thank you to all who have done so. This book is equally your making. At the beginning of planning for the Twelfth Edition, my editors at Norton solicited the guidance of hundreds of instructors via in-depth reviews and a Web-hosted survey. The response was impressive, bordering on overwhelming; it was also immensely helpful. Thank you to those provided extensive written com- mentary: Julianne Altenbernd (Cypress College), Troy Appling (Florida Gate- way College), Christina Bisirri (Seminole State College), Jill Channing (Mitchell Community College), Thomas Chester (Ivy Tech), Marcelle Cohen (Valencia College), Patricia Glanville (State College of Florida), Julie Gibson (Greenville Tech), Christina Grant (St.  Charles Community College), Lauren Hahn (City Colleges of Chicago), Zachary Hyde (Valencia College), Brenda Jernigan (Meth- odist University), Mary Anne Keefer (Lord Fairfax Community College), Shari Koopman (Valencia College), Jessica Rabin (Anne Arundel Community College), Angela Rasmussen (Spokane Community College), Britnee Shandor (Lanier Tech- nical College), Heidi Sheridan (Ocean County College), Jeff Tix (Wharton Jr. College), Bente Videbaek (Stony Brook University), Patrice Willaims (Northwest Florida State College), and Connie Youngblood (Blinn College). Thanks also to everyone who responded to the survey online: Sue Abbotson (Rhode Island College), Emory Abbott (Georgia Perimeter College), Mary Adams (Lincoln College-Normal), Julie Altenbernd (Cypress College), Troy Appling (Florida Gateway College), Marilyn Judith Atlas (Ohio University), Unoma Azuah (Lane College), Diann Baecker (Virginia State Uni- versity), Aaron Barrell (Everett Community College), Craig Barrette (Brescia University), John Bell (American River College), Monica Berlin (Knox College), Mary Anne Bernal (San Antonio College), Jolan Bishop (Southeastern Com- munity College), Randall Blankenship (Valencia College), Margaret Boas (Anne Arundel Community College), Andrew Bodenrader (Manhattanville College), James Borton (Coastal Carolina University), Ethel Bowden (Central Maine Community College), Amy Braziller (Red Rocks Community College), Jason Brown (Herkimer County Community College), Alissa Burger (SUNY Delhi), Michael Burns (Spokane Community College), Ryan Campbell (Front Range Community College), Anna Cancelli (Coastal Carolina Community College), Vanessa Canete-Jurado (Binghamton University), Rebecca Cash (SUNY Adiron- dack), Kevin Cavanaugh (Dutchess Community College), Emily Chamison (Georgia College & State University), Jill Channing (Mitchell Community Col- lege), Thomas Chester (Ivy Tech), Ann Clark (Jefferson Community College), Thomas Coakley (Mount Aloysius College), Susan Cole (Albert Magnus Col- lege), Tera Joy Cole (Idaho State University), Vicki Collins (University of South Carolina Aiken), Jonathan Cook (Durham Technical Community College), Beth Copeland (Methodist University), Bill Corby (Berkshire Community Col- lege), James Crowley (Bridgewater State University), Diane D’Amico (Allegheny College), Susan Dauer (Valencia College), Emily Dial-Driver (Rogers State Uni- versity), Lorraine DiCicco (University of Western Ontario), Christina Devlin (Montgomery College), Jess Domanico (Point University), William Donovan (Idaho State University), Bonnie Dowd (Montclair State University), Douglas

x x xii PREFACE FOR INSTRUCTORS Dowland (Ohio Northern University), Justine Dymond (Springfield College), Jason Evans (Prairie State College), Richard Farias (San Antonio College), Karen Feldman (Seminole State College),  V. Ferretti (Westmoreland County Com- munity College), Bradley Fest (University of Pittsburgh), Glynn-Ellen Fisichelli (Nassau Community College), Colleen Flanagan (Seminole State College of Flor- ida), Michael Flynn (University of North Dakota), Matthew Fullerty (Chowan University), Robert Galin (University of New Mexico at Gallup), Margaret Gar- dineer (Felician College), Jan Geyer (Hudson Valley Community College), Sea- mus Gibbons (Bergen Community College), Eva Gold (Southeastern Louisiana University), Melissa Green (Ohio University Chillicothe), Frank Gruber (Bergen Community College), Lauren Hahn (City Colleges of Chicago), Rob Hale (West- ern Kentucky University), Nada Halloway (Manhattanville College), Melody Hargraves (St. Johns River State College), Elizabeth Harlan (Northern Virginia Community College), Stephanie Harzewski (University of New Hampshire), Lance Hawvermale (Ranger College), Catherine Heath (Victoria College), Beth Heim de Bera (Rochester Community and Technical College), Natalie Hewitt (Hope International University), Melissa Hoban (Blinn College), Charles Hood (Antelope Valley College), Trish Hopkins (Community College of Vermont), Spring Hyde (Lincoln College), Tammy Jabin (Chemeketa Community College), Kim Jacobs-Beck (University of Cincinnati Clermont College), Brenda Jerrigan (Methodist University), Kathy Johnson (SUNY Cobleskill), Darlene Johnston (Ohio Northern University), Kimberly Kaczorowski (University of Utah), Mary- ellen Keefe (SUNY Maritime College), Mary Anne Keefer (Lord Fairfax Com- munity College), Caroline Kelley (Bergen Community College), Tim Kelley (Northwest-Shoals Community College), Mary Catherine Killany (Robert Mor- ris University), Amy Kolker (Black Hawk College), Beth Kolp (Dutchess Com- munity College), Shari Koopman (Valencia College), Jill Kronstadt (Montgomery College), Liz Langemak (La Salle University), Audrey Lapointe (Cuyamaca College), Dawn Lattin (Idaho State University), Richard Lee (Elon University), Nancy Lee-Jones (Endicott College), Sharon Levy (Northampton Commu- nity College), Erika Lin (George Mason University), Clare Little (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University), Paulette Longmore (Essex County College), Carol Luther (Pellissippi State Community College), Sean McAuley (North Georgia Technical College), Sheila McAvey (Becker College), Kelli McBride (Seminole State College), Jim McWilliams (Dickinson State University), Vickie Melograno (Atlantic Cape Community College), Agnetta Mendoza (Nashville State Com- munity College), David Merchant (Louisiana Tech University), Edith Miller (Angelina College), Benjamin Mitchell (Georgia College & State University), James Norman (Bridgewater State University), Angelia Northrip-Rivera (Mis- souri State University), James Obertino (University of Central Missouri), Elaine Ostry (SUNY Plattsburg), Michelle Paulsen (Victoria College), Russell Perkin (Saint Mary’s University), Katherine Perry (Georgia Perimeter College), Thomas Pfister (Idaho State University), Gemmicka Piper (University of Iowa), Michael Podolny (Onondaga Community College), Wanda Pothier-Hill (Mt. Wachusett Community College), Gregg Pratt (SUNY Adirondack, Wilton Campus), Jona- than Purkiss (Pulaski Technical College), Jessica Rabin (Anne Arundel Com- munity College), Elizabeth Rambo (Campbell University), Angela Rasmussen

PREFACE FOR INSTRUCTORS x x xiii (Spokane Community College), Rhonda Ray (East Stroudsburg University), Janet Red Feather (Normandale Community College), Joan Reeves (Northeast Ala- bama Community College), Matthias Regan (North Central College), Eliza- beth Rescher (Richard Bland College), Stephanie Roberts (Georgia Military College), Paul Robichaud (Albert Magnus College), Nancy Roche (University of Utah), Mary Rohrer-Dann (Pennsylvania State University), Michael Rottnick (Ellsworth Community College), Scott Rudd (Monroe Community College), Ernest Rufleth (Louisiana Tech University), Frank Rusciano (Rider University), Michael Sarabia (University of Iowa), Susan Scheckel (Stony Brook Univer- sity), Lori Schroeder (Knox College), Britnee Shandor (Lanier Technical Col- lege), Jolie Sheffer (Bowling Green State University), Olympia Sibley, (Blinn College), Christine Sizemore (Spelman College), Chris Small (New Hampshire Technical Institute), Katherine Smit (Housatonic Community College), Whit- ney Smith (Miami University), Jason Snart (College of Dupage), John Snider (Montana State University- Northern), Shannon Stewart (Costal Carolina Uni- versity), Susan St. Peters (Riverside City College), Michael Stubbs (Idaho State University), Patrice Suggs (Craven Community College), Joseph Sullivan (Mari- etta College), Heidi L. Sura (Kirtland Community College), David Susman (York County Community College), Fred Svoboda (University of Michigan), Taryne Taylor (University of Iowa), Nancy Thompson (Community College of Vermont), Rita Treutel (University of Alabama at Birmingham), Keja Valens (Salem State University), Diana Vecchio (Widener University), Bente Videbaek (Stony Brook University), Donna Waldron (Campbell University), Kent Walker (Brock Uni- versity), Brandi Wallace (Wallace Community College), Valerie Wallace (City Colleges of Chicago), Maureen Walters (Vance-Granville Community College), Megan Walsh (St. Bonaventure University), Kimberly Ward (Campbell Univer- sity), Catherine Welter (University of New Hampshire), Jeff Westover (Boise State University), Kathy Whitaker (East Georgia State College), Bruce Wigutow (Farmingdale State College), Jessica Wilkie (Monroe Community College), Leigh Williams (Dutchess Community College), Jenny Williams (Spartanburg Community College), Patrice Williams (Northwest Florida State College), Greg- ory Wilson (St. John’s University), Mark WIlson (Southwestern Oregon Com- munity College), Rita Wisdom (Tarrant County College), Martha Witt (William Paterson University), Robert Wiznura (Grant MacEwan University), Jarrell Wright (University of Pittsburgh), Kelly Yacobucci (SUNY Cobleskill), Kidane Yohannes (Burlington County College), Brian Yost (Texas A&M University), Connie Youngblood (Blinn College), Susan Youngs (Southern New Hampshire University), and Jason Ziebart (Central Carolina Community College).



THE NORTON INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE SHORTER TWELFTH EDITION



Introduction In the opening chapters of Charles Dickens’s novel Hard Times (1854), the aptly named Thomas Gradgrind warns the teachers and pupils at his “model” school to avoid using their imaginations. “Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life,” exclaims Mr. Gradgrind. To press his point, Mr. Gradgrind asks “girl number twenty,” Sissy Jupe, the daughter of a circus performer, to define a horse. When she cannot, Gradgrind turns to Bitzer, a pale, spiritless boy who “looked as though, if he were cut, he would bleed white.” A “model” stu- dent of this “model” school, Bitzer gives exactly the kind of definition to satisfy Mr. Gradgrind: Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely, twenty-four grinders, four eye- teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs. Anyone who has any sense of what a horse is rebels against Bitzer’s lifeless pic- ture of that animal and against the “Gradgrind” view of reality. As these first scenes of Hard Times lead us to expect, in the course of the novel the fact-grinding Mr. Gradgrind learns that human beings cannot live on facts alone; that it is dangerous to stunt the faculties of imagination and feeling; that, in the words of one of the novel’s more lovable characters, “People must be amused.” Through the downfall of an exaggerated enemy of the imagination, Dickens reminds us why we like and even need to read literature. WHAT IS LITER ATURE? But what is literature? Before you opened this book, you probably could guess that it would contain the sorts of stories, poems, and plays you have encountered in English classes or in the literature section of a library or bookstore. But why are some written works called literature whereas others are not? And who gets to decide? The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language offers a num- ber of definitions for the word literature, one of which is “imaginative or creative writing, especially of recognized artistic value.” In this book, we adopt a version of that definition by focusing on fictional stories, poems, and plays—the three major kinds (or genres) of “imaginative or creative writing” that form the heart of litera- ture as it has been taught in schools and universities for over a century. Many of the works we have chosen to include are already ones “of recognized artistic value” and thus belong to what scholars call the canon, a select, if much-debated and ever-evolving, list of the most highly and widely esteemed works. Though quite a few of the literary texts we include are simply too new to have earned that status, they, too, have already drawn praise, and some have even generated controversy. Certainly it helps to bear in mind what others have thought of a literary work. Yet one of this book’s primary goals is to get you to think for yourself, as well as communicate with others, about what “imaginative writing” and “artistic value” are or might be and thus about what counts as literature. What makes a story or poem different from an essay, a newspaper editorial, or a technical manual? For 1

2 INTRODUCTION that matter, what makes a published, canonical story like Herman Melville’s Bartleby, the Scrivener both like and unlike the sorts of stories we tell each other every day? What about so-called oral literature, such as the fables and folk- tales that circulated by word of mouth for hundreds of years before they were ever written down? Or published works such as comic strips and graphic novels that rely little, if at all, on the written word? Or Harlequin romances, television shows, and the stories you collaborate in making when you play a video game? Likewise, how is Shakespeare’s poem My mistress’s eyes are nothing like the sun both like and unlike a verse you might find in a Hallmark card or even a jingle in a mouthwash commercial? Today, literature departments offer courses in many of these forms of expres- sion, expanding the realm of literature far beyond the limits of the dictionary definition. An essay, a song lyric, a screenplay, a supermarket romance, a novel by Toni Morrison or William Faulkner, and a poem by Walt Whitman or Emily Dickinson—each may be read and interpreted in literary ways that yield insight and pleasure. What makes the literary way of reading different from pragmatic reading is, as scholar Louise Rosenblatt explains, that it does not focus “on what will remain [. . .] after the reading—the information to be acquired, the logical solution to a problem, the actions to be carried out,” but rather on “what happens

INTRODUCTION 3 during [. . .] reading.” The difference between pragmatic and literary reading, in other words, resembles the difference between a journey that is only about reach- ing a destination and one that is just as much about fully experiencing the ride. In the pages of this book, you will find cartoons, an excerpt from a graphic novel, song lyrics, folktales, and stories and plays that have spawned movies. Through this inclusiveness, we do not intend to suggest that there are no distinctions among these various forms of expression or between a good story, poem, or play and a bad one; rather, we want to get you thinking, talking, and writing both about what the key differences and similarities among these forms are and what makes one work a better example of its genre than another. Sharpening your skills at these peculiarly intensive and responsive sorts of reading and interpretation is a primary purpose of this book and of most literature courses. Another goal of inclusiveness is simply to remind you that literature doesn’t just belong in a textbook or a classroom, even if textbooks and classrooms are essential means for expanding your knowledge of the literary terrain and of the concepts and techniques essential to thoroughly enjoying and understanding a broad range of literary forms. You may or may not be the kind of person who always takes a novel when you go to the beach or secretly writes a poem about your experience when you get back home. You may or may not have taken a literature course (or courses) before. Yet you already have a good deal of literary experience and even expertise, as well as much more to discover about literature. A major aim of this book is to make you more conscious of how and to what end you might use the tools you already possess and to add many new ones to your tool belt. WHAT DOES LITER ATURE DO? One quality that may well differentiate stories, poems, and plays from other kinds of writing is that they help us move beyond and probe beneath abstractions by giv- ing us concrete, vivid particulars. Rather than talking about things, they bring them to life for us by representing experience, and so they become an experience for us—one that engages our emotions, our imagination, and all of our senses, as well as our intellects. As the British poet and critic Matthew Arnold put it more than a century ago, “The interpretations of science do not give us this intimate sense of objects as the interpretations of poetry give it; they appeal to a limited fac- ulty, and not to the whole man. It is not Linnaeus [. . .] who gives us the true sense of animals, or water, or plants, who seizes their secret for us, who makes us par- ticipate in their life; it is Shakespeare [. . .] Wordsworth [. . .] Keats.” To test Arnold’s theory, compare the American Heritage Dictionary’s rather dry definition of literature with the following poem, in which John Keats describes his first encounter with a specific literary work—George Chapman’s translation of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epics by the ancient Greek poet Homer.

4 INTRODUCTION JOHN KEATS On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer1 Much have I traveled in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo2 hold. 5 Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne; Yet did I never breathe its pure serene3 Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies 10 When a new planet swims into his ken;4 Or like stout Cortez5 when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific—and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmise— Silent, upon a peak in Darien. 1816 Keats makes us see literature as a “wide expanse” by greatly developing this meta- phor and complementing it with similes likening reading to the sighting of a “new planet” and the first glimpse of an undiscovered ocean. More important, he shows us what literature means and why it matters by allowing us to share with him the subjective experience of reading and the complex sensations it inspires—the diz- zying exhilaration of discovery; the sense of power, accomplishment, and pride that comes of achieving something difficult; the wonder we feel in those rare moments when a much-anticipated experience turns out to be even greater than we had imagined it would be. It isn’t the definitions of words alone that bring this experience to life for us as we read Keats’s poem, but also their sensual qualities—the way the words look, sound, and even feel in our mouths because of the particular way they are put together on the page. The sensation of excitement—of a racing heart and mind—is reproduced in us as we read the poem. For example, notice how the lines in the middle run into each other, but then Keats forces us to slow down at the poem’s end—stopped short by that dash and comma in the poem’s final lines, just as Cortez and his men are when they reach the edge of the known world and peer into what lies beyond. WHAT ARE THE GENRES OF LITER ATURE? The conversation that is literature, as well as the conversation about literature, invites all comers, requiring neither a visa nor a special license of any kind. Yet literary studies, like all disciplines, has developed its own terminology and its own 1. George Chapman’s were among the most famous Renaissance translations of Homer; he completed his Iliad in 1611, his Odyssey in 1616. Keats wrote the sonnet after being led to Chapman by a former teacher and reading the Iliad all night long. 2. Greek god of poetry and music. Fealty: literally, the loyalty owed by a vassal to his feudal lord. 3. Atmosphere. 4. Range of vision; awareness. 5. Actually, Balboa; he first viewed the Pacific from Darien, in Panama.

INTRODUCTION 5 systems of classification. Helping you understand and effectively use both is a major focus of this book; especially important terms appear in bold throughout and are defined in a glossary at the back. Some essential literary terms are common, everyday words used in a special way in the conversation about literature. A case in point, perhaps, is the term literary criticism, as well as the closely related term literary critic. Despite the usual con- notations of the word criticism, literary criticism is called criticism not because it is negative or corrective but rather because those who write criticism ask searching, analytical, “critical” questions about the works they read. Literary criticism is both the process of interpreting and commenting on literature and the result of that process. If you write an essay on the play Hamlet, the poetry of John Keats, or the development of the short story in the 1990s, you engage in literary criticism, and by writing the essay, you’ve become a literary critic. Similarly, when we classify works of literature, we use terms that may be famil- iar to you but have specific meanings in a literary context. All academic disci- plines have systems of classification, or taxonomies, as well as jargon. Biologists, for example, classify all organisms into a series of ever-smaller, more specific cat- egories: kingdom, phylum or division, class, order, family, genus, and species. Clas- sification and comparison are just as essential in the study of literature. We expect a poem to work in a certain way, for example, when we know from the outset that it is a poem and not, say, a factual news report or a short story. And—whether consciously or not—we compare it, as we read, to other poems we’ve read in the past. If we know, further, that the poem was first published in eighteenth-century Japan, we expect it to work differently from one that appeared in the latest New Yorker. Indeed, we often choose what to read, just as we choose what movie to see, based on the “class” or “order” of book or movie we like or what we are in the mood for that day—horror or comedy, action or science fiction. As these examples suggest, we generally tend to categorize literary works in two ways: (1) on the basis of contextual factors, especially historical and cultural context—that is, when, by whom, and where it was produced (as in nineteenth- century literature, the literature of the Harlem Renaissance, American literature, or African American literature)—and (2) on the basis of formal textual features. For the latter type of classification, the one we focus on in this book, the key term is genre, which simply means, as the Oxford English Dictionary tells us, “A particular style or category of works of art; esp. a type of literary work characterized by a par- ticular form, style, or purpose.” Applied rigorously, genre refers to the largest categories around which this book is organized—fiction, poetry, and drama (as well as nonfiction prose). The word subgenre applies to smaller divisions within a genre, and the word kind to divisions within a subgenre. Subgenres of fiction include the novel, the novella, and the short story. Kinds of novels, in turn, include things like the bildungsro- man or the epistolary novel. Similarly, important subgenres of nonfiction include the essay, as well as biography and autobiography; a memoir is a particular kind of autobiography, and so on. However, the terms of literary criticism are not so fixed or so consistently, rig- orously used as biologists’ are. You will often see the word genre applied both much more narrowly—referring to the novel, for example, or even to a kind of novel such as the epistolary novel or the historical novel. The way we classify a work depends on which aspects of its form or style we concentrate on, and categories may overlap. When we divide fiction, for example,

6 INTRODUCTION into the subgenres novel, novella, and short story, we take the length of the works as the salient aspect. (Novels are much longer than short stories.) But other fictional subgenres—detective fiction, gothic fiction, historical fiction, science fiction, and even romance—are based on the types of plots, characters, settings, and so on that are customarily featured in these works. These latter categories may include works from all the other, length-based categories. There are, after all, gothic novels (think Stephenie Meyer), as well as gothic short stories (think Edgar Allan Poe). A few genres even cut across the boundaries dividing poetry, fiction, drama, and nonfiction. A prime example is satire—any literary work (whether poem, play, fiction, or nonfiction) “in which prevailing vices and follies are held up to ridicule” (Oxford English Dictionary). Examples of satire include poems such as Alexander Pope’s Dunciad (1728); plays, movies, and television shows, from Molière’s Tar- tuffe (1664) to Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove (1964) to South Park and The Daily Show; works of fiction like Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726) and Voltaire’s Candide (1759); and works of nonfiction such as Swift’s “A Modest Pro- posal” (1729) and Ambrose Bierce’s The Devil’s Dictionary (1906). Three other major genres that cross the borders between fiction, poetry, drama, and nonfiction are parody, pastoral, and romance. Individual works can thus belong simultaneously to multiple generic categories or observe some conventions of a genre without being an example of that genre in any simple or straightforward way. The Old English poem Beowulf is an epic and, because it’s written in verse, a poem. Yet because (like all epics) it narrates a story, it is also a work of fiction in the more general sense of that term. Given this complexity, the system of literary genres can be puzzling, especially to the uninitiated. Used well, however, classification schemes are among the most essential and effective tools we use to understand and enjoy just about everything, including literature. WHY READ LITER ATURE? Because there has never been and never will be absolute, lasting agreement about where exactly the boundaries between one literary genre and another should be drawn or even about what counts as literature at all, it might be more useful from the outset to focus on why we look at particular forms of expression. Over the ages, people have sometimes dismissed all literature or at least certain genres as a luxury, a frivolous pastime, even a sinful indulgence. Plato famously banned poetry from his ideal republic on the grounds that it tells beautiful lies that “feed and water our passions” rather than our reason. Thousands of years later, the influential eighteenth-century philosopher Jeremy Bentham decried the “magic art” of literature as doing a good deal of “mischief” by “stimulating our passions” and “exciting our prejudices.” One of Bentham’s contemporaries—a minister—blamed the rise of immorality, irreligion, and even prostitution on the increasing popularity of that particular brand of literature called the novel. Today, many Americans express their sense of literature’s insignificance by simply not reading it: The 2004 government report Reading at Risk indicates that less than half of U.S. adults read imaginative literature, with the sharpest declines occurring among the youngest age groups. Even if they very much enjoy reading on their own, many contemporary U.S. college students nonetheless hesitate to study or major in literature for fear that their degree won’t provide them with marketable credentials, knowledge, or skills.

INTRODUCTION 7 Yet the enormous success of The Hunger Games trilogy and the proliferation of reading groups are only two of many signs that millions of people continue to find both reading literature and discussing it with others to be enjoyable, meaningful, even essential activities. English thrives as a major at most colleges and universi- ties, almost all of which require undergraduates majoring in other areas to take at least one course in literature. (Perhaps that’s why you are reading this book!) Schools of medicine, law, and business are today more likely to require their stu- dents to take literature courses than they were in past decades, and they continue to welcome literature majors as applicants, as do many corporations. So why do so many people read and study literature, and why do schools encourage and even require students to do so? Even if we know what literature is, what does it do for us? What is its value? There are, of course, as many answers to such questions as there are readers. For centuries, a standard answer has been simply that imaginative literature provides a unique brand of “instruction and delight.” John Keats’s On Looking into Chapman’s Homer illustrates some of the many forms such delight can take. Some kinds of imaginative writing offer us the delight of immediate escape, but imaginative writing that is more difficult to read and understand than a Harry Potter or Twilight novel offers escape of a different and potentially more instruc- tive sort, liberating us from the confines of our own time, place, and social milieu, as well as our habitual ways of thinking, feeling, and looking at the world. In this way, a story, poem, or play can satisfy our desire for broader experience— including the sorts of experience we might be unable or unwilling to endure in real life. We can learn what it might be like to grow up on a Canadian fox farm or to clean ashtrays in the Singapore airport. We can travel back into the past, experienc- ing war from the perspective of a soldier watching his comrade die or of prisoners suffering in a Nazi labor camp. We can journey into the future or into universes governed by entirely different rules than our own. Perhaps we yearn for such knowl- edge because we can best come to understand our own identities and outlooks by leaping over the boundaries that separate us from other selves and worlds. Keats’s friend and fellow poet Percy Bysshe Shelley argued that literature increases a person’s ability to make such leaps, to “imagine intensely and compre- hensively” and “put himself in the place of another and of many othe[r]” people in order “to be greatly good.” Shelley meant “good” in a moral sense, reasoning that the ability both to accurately imagine and to truly feel the human consequences of our actions is the key to ethical behavior. But universities and professional schools today also define this “good” in distinctly pragmatic ways. In virtually any career you choose, you will need to interact positively and productively with both coworkers and clients, and in today’s increasingly globalized world, you will need to learn to deal effectively and empathetically with people vastly different from yourself. At the very least, literature written by people from various backgrounds and depict- ing various places, times, experiences, and feelings will give you some under- standing of how others’ lives and worldviews may differ from your own—or how they may be very much the same. Similarly, our rapidly changing world and economy require intellectual flexibil- ity, adaptability, and ingenuity, making ever more essential the human knowledge, general skills, and habits of mind developed through the study of literature. Litera- ture explores issues and questions relevant in any walk of life. Yet rather than offer- ing us neat or comforting solutions and answers, literature enables us to experience difficult situations and human conundrums in all their complexity and to look at

8 INTRODUCTION them from various points of view. In so doing, it invites us sometimes to question conventional thinking and sometimes to see its wisdom, even as it helps us imag- ine altogether new possibilities. Finally, literature awakens us to the richness and complexity of language—our primary tool for engaging with, understanding, and shaping the world around us. As we read more and more, seeing how different writers use language to help us feel their joy, pain, love, rage, or laughter, we begin to recognize the vast range of possibilities for self-expression. Writing and discussion in turn give us invaluable practice in discovering, expressing, and defending our own nuanced, often contra- dictory thoughts about both literature and life. The study of literature enhances our command of language and our sensitivity to its effects and meanings in every form or medium, providing interpretation and communication skills especially cru- cial in our information age. By learning to appreciate and articulate what the language of a story, poem, a play, or an essay does to us and by considering how it affects others, we also learn much about what we can do with language. What We Do With Literature: Three Tips 1. Take a literary work on its own terms. Adjust to the work; don’t make the work adjust to you. Be prepared to hear things you do not want to hear. Not all works are about your ideas, nor will they always present emotions you want to feel. But be tolerant and listen to the work first; later you can explore the ways you do or don’t agree with it. 2. Assume there is a reason for everything. Writers do make mistakes, but when a work shows some degree of verbal control it is usually safest to assume that the writer chose each word carefully; if the choice seems peculiar, you may be missing something. Try to account for everything in a work, see what kind of sense you can make of it, and figure out a coherent pattern that explains the text as it stands. 3. Remember that literary texts exist in time, and times change. Not only the meanings of words, but whole ways of looking at the universe vary in differ- ent ages. Consciousness of time works two ways: Your knowledge of history provides a context for reading the work, and the work may modify your notion of a particular age. WHY STUDY LITER ATURE? You may already feel the power and pleasure to be gained from a sustained encounter with challenging reading. Then why not simply enjoy it in solitude, on your own free time? Why take a course in literature? Literary study, like all disci- plines, has developed its own terminology and its own techniques. Some knowl- edge and understanding of both can greatly enhance our personal appreciation of literature and our conversations with others about it. Literature also has a context and a history, and learning something about them can make all the difference in the amount and kind of pleasure and insight you derive from literature. By read- ing and discussing different genres of literature, as well as works from varied times and places, you may well come to appreciate and even love works that you might never have discovered or chosen to read on your own or that you might have dis- liked or misunderstood if you did.

INTRODUCTION 9 Most important, writing about works of literature and discussing them with your teachers and other students will give you practice in analyzing literature in greater depth and in considering alternative views of both the works themselves and the situations and problems the works explore. A clear understanding of the aims and designs of a story, poem, or play never falls like a bolt from the blue. Instead, it emerges from a process that involves trying to put into words how and why this work had such an effect on you and, just as important, responding to what others say or write about it. Literature itself is a vast, ongoing, ever-evolving con- versation in which we most fully participate when we enter into actual conversa- tion with others. As you engage in this conversation, you will notice that interpretation is always variable, always open to discussion. A great diversity of interpretations might sug- gest that the discussion is pointless. On the contrary, that’s when the discussion gets most interesting. Because there is no single, straight, paved road to an under- standing of a literary text, you can explore a variety of blazed trails and less- traveled paths. In sharing your own interpretations, tested against your peers’ responses and guided by your instructor’s or other critics’ expertise, you will hone your skills at both interpretation and communication. After the intricate and interactive process of interpretation, you will find that the work has changed when you read it again. What we do with literature alters what it does to us.



FICTION James Baldwin

FICTION Reading, Responding, Writing Stories are a part of daily life in every culture. Stories are what we tell when we return from vacation or survive an accident or illness. They help us make sense of growing up or growing old, of a hurricane or a war, of the country and world we live in. In conversations, a story may be invited by the listener (“What did you do last night?”) or initiated by the teller (“Guess what I saw when I was driving home!”). We assume such stories are true, or at least that they are meant to describe an experience honestly. Of course, many of the stories we encoun- ter daily, from jokes to online games to television sitcoms to novels and films, are intended to be fiction—that is, stories or narratives about imaginary persons and events. Every story, however, whether a news story, sworn testimony, idle gossip, or a fairy tale, is always a version of events told from a particular perspective (or several), and it may be incomplete, biased, or just plain made up. As we listen to others’ stories, we keep alert to the details, which make the stories rich and enter- taining. But we also need to spend considerable time and energy making sure that we accurately interpret what we hear: We ask ourselves who is telling the story, why the story is being told, and whether we have all the information we need to understand it fully. Even newspaper articles, which are supposed to tell true stories—the facts of what actually happened—may be open to such interpretation. Take as an example the following article, which appeared in the New York Times on January 1, 1920: The report’s appearance in a reliable newspaper; its identification of date, loca- tion, and other information; and the legalistic adjectives “accused” and “alleged” 12

The Elephant in the Village of the Blind 13 suggest that it strives to be accurate and objective. But given the distance between us and the events described here, it’s also easy to imagine this chain of events being recounted in a play, murder mystery, Hollywood film, or televised trial. In other words, this news story is still fundamentally a story. Note that certain points of view are better represented than others and certain details are highlighted, as might be the case in a novel or short story. The news item is based almost entirely on what Kate Uhl asserts, and even the subtitle, “Woman Becomes Desperate,” plays up the “dramatic sequel to the woman’s dilemma.” We don’t know what Mervin Uhl said when he allegedly accused his wife and turned her out of the house, and Bryan Pownall, the murdered man, never had a chance to defend himself. Presumably, the article reports accurately the husband’s accusation of adultery and the wife’s accu- sation of rape, but we have no way of knowing whose accusations are true. Our everyday interpretation of the stories we hear from various sources— including other people, television, newspapers, and advertisements—has much in common with the interpretation of short stories such as those in this anthology. In fact, you’ll probably discover that the processes of reading, responding to, and writ- ing about stories are already somewhat familiar to you. Most readers already know, for instance, that they should pay close attention to seemingly trivial details; they should ask questions and find out more about any matters of fact that seem myste- rious, odd, or unclear. Most readers are well aware that words can have several meanings and that there are alternative ways to tell a story. How would someone else have told the story? What are the storyteller’s perspective and motives? What is the context of the tale—for instance, when is it supposed to have taken place and what was the occasion of telling it? These and other questions from our expe- rience of everyday storytelling are equally relevant in reading fiction. Similarly, we can usually tell in reading a story or hearing it whether it is supposed to make us laugh, shock us, or provoke some other response. TELLING STORIES: INTERPRETATION Everyone has a unique story to tell. In fact, many stories are about this difference or divergence among people’s interpretations of reality. A number of the stories in this anthology explore issues of storytelling and interpretation. Consider a well-known tale, “The Blind Men and the Elephant,” a Buddhist story over two thousand years old. Like other stories that have been transmitted orally, this one exists in many versions. Here’s one way of telling it: The Elephant in the Village of the Blind Once there was a village high in the mountains in which everyone was born blind. One day a traveler arrived from far away with many fine things to sell and many tales to tell. The villagers asked, “How did you travel so far and so high carrying so much?” The traveler said, “On my elephant.” “What is an elephant?” the villagers asked, having never even heard of such an animal in their remote mountain village. “See for yourself,” the traveler replied. The elders of the village were a little afraid of the strange-smelling creature that took up so much space in the middle of the village square. They could hear